The role of Jesus in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1977 film Jesus of Nazareth was given to British actor Robert Powell. Powell gave the performance of his life while working with legendary Hollywood actors like Anne Bancroft. Christopher Plummer, and James Mason. Millions of people worldwide watched the wildly popular television series. Even the Pope viewed it and was so impressed that he gave it his formal endorsement.

Powell revisits the character in Robert Powell on the Real Jesus of Nazareth forty years later. In the four-part series, the actor explores the life of Jesus Christ while traveling around the Holy Land, challenging our preconceptions as he goes. To learn more, we spoke with the actor.

This was one of the reasons I wanted to do the series. Originally, forty years ago, I was completely avoiding Jesus. Franco Zeffirelli and I initially believed that we could combine the divine Christ with the human one and that we would be able to show the human side of him, but we quickly realized that it was just not possible.

You go and work subjectively as an actor, but the moment you try to play him as a real person, you entirely lose the divinity. The most crucial component that this character must possess in order for this story to work is extraordinaryness. From that point on, I played it objectively without resorting to giving him any special quirks and purposefully avoided doing the typical human behaviors. It’s a fast track to a nervous breakdown to attempt and play god and get the idea of it. So I entirely changed course. I came up with a method for accomplishing it that was different from the actor’s typical method.

Source – Africanworldentertainment.com